Send scheduled Telegram messages from a bot

Send messages from your Telegram bot to a chat, group, or channel on a schedule: daily briefs, reminders, and alerts, filled in from any API. cronservices calls the Bot API, so you don't need to keep the bot running.

#Example: a morning weather brief for a crew

{
  "name": "Crew weather brief",
  "cron": { "expression": "30 5 * * 1-6", "time_zone": "America/Los_Angeles" },
  "nodes": [
    { "id": "forecast", "open_meteo_forecast": { "latitude": "45.52", "longitude": "-122.68", "units": "imperial" } },
    { "id": "text", "telegram_send_message": {
        "credential_id": "YOUR_TELEGRAM_BOT_ID",
        "chat_id": "-1001234567890",
        "text": "Today: {{ $.daily.temperature_2m_min[0] }}–{{ $.daily.temperature_2m_max[0] }}°F, {{ $.daily.precipitation_sum[0] }} in of rain." } }
  ]
}

#Set up

1. Create a bot with @BotFather and save its token as a telegram_bot credential in Settings → Credentials.
2. Add the bot to the group or channel. For a channel, make it an admin.
3. Find the chat id: send a message in the chat, then open https://api.telegram.org/bot<token>/getUpdates. Group ids are negative. For a public channel, @channelusername works too.

#Reference

#Send a Telegram message: telegram_send_message

Sends POST https://api.telegram.org/bot<token>/sendMessage. Output for the next step: Telegram’s response, with the sent message in result.

#More ideas

• A daily reminder to take medication at 08:00 local: 0 8 * * *.
• Today's exchange rate in a family group chat.
• A one-time reminder the evening before an event, with run_at.